Glittersphere
by PlatinumRosewood
Summary: Summer is at its end and with it comes a new school year, new faces in town, and new self discoveries that aren't too welcome all around. Feelings blossom with no warning, psychedelics slide throughout town, and secrets slip through cracks. It won't be long before everything goes up in flames, and at 17, no one knows how to catch smoke with their bare hands.
1. Chapter 1

It's fucking cool is her first thought. She didn't have this problem over the summer in rehab. Of course, she wasn't locked up like a dog there. By the end anyway. Rehab was a painfully clear memory but the days blended together so monotonously similar that she had trouble telling the weeks apart from each other. She had a few favorite cracks in the speckled ceiling, a random strip of white brick wall that was minimally rougher than anywhere else in the building. She knew how many screws were in each locked cabinet- and knew how fucking tight those screws were secured on the backs of each medical bin. In the last few weeks of the summer, they let her in the courtyard, and god, she forgot what a full breeze in her face felt like. Feeling anything other than being bored if she's honest.

They did their best as only responsible but professionally distant rehab staff can do, but after the first few days it was easy to nod the correct nods, smile just wide enough to fake interest, say whatever sounded the best in their awkward group talks where some people shared way way too much about their personal unbecoming and some people couldn't be bothered to make eye contact. A good medium seemed to be the best bet and- lo and behold- here she is back in her hometown, finessing her way out of the loony bin. She respected what they did. Honest to God. It just wasn't for her. Rue had no intention of getting clean.

There's a slip up then, crossing the field to the street where her mom's older car sits parked on the rocky shoulder, and for a split second Rue considers the annoying but potential benefit getting clean can have. It's Gia's face squinting at her from the end of the road happy to see her if not tentatively wary of her homecoming. It's also Gia's face that sends a ripple of chill down her legs. She could blame it on the breezy day and her over sized khaki shorts, or she could stare History in its' shitty face for once and acknowledge that Gia hasn't seen Rue in normal everyday wear (alive for that matter) since the overdose. But the glaring fact of the matter is that even considering any option of what her sister had to deal with makes Rue desperately need some oxy. Instead she does her best to not think of any of it except for how cool the breeze feels in her hair until her sisters' arms are wrapped around her thin waist and she tries to ignore how tall she's gotten in the four months Rue's been gone.

Her mom is less enthusiastic, understandably more guarded in her affections but she can't deny she's pleased to see her heathen of a daughter in all the time that's passed. For a moment with the two of them, Rue feels almost comfortably naive and innocent. The feeling won't last, but they never do she mentally admits with a heavyset chest and all of a sudden she's right back in it. The bullshit.

...

"Look who it is, back from the dead." Rue mocks an overdone curtsy as she walks up to Fezco, lounging in a lawn chair in a parking lot. She missed him. "So," he takes a hit of his thick joint before handing it off to Rue, "how was rehab?" She takes a hit and frickin' A her eyes fly in her head for a minute as the dead sobriety takes a partial backseat.

"Ah, you know first few weeks were rough until I found our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." He raises a thick ginger brow but nods along.

"Oh word? Thats whassup.." and he blows a thick cloud of smoke out. She can't keep the bluff more than a few seconds before her face cracks open and she shoves him with a grin.

"Bro you know I'm fuckin' with you," she laughs. His hands come up and he shrugs.

"Hey I don't judge, if that's your thing, dope." Fez is a necessary landmark in her life and not just because he's her dealer. The dude knew how to always calm down a room, things were never really dire when he was around. He talked about as fast as a sloth but it was his thing. No rush, all laid back- but not the lazy kind. He was Rue's brother, if she ever had one, or at least as close as she would get to having. Had her back through all the shit and never lost his own. Bright blue eyes and dark Ginger fade. The only reason he fit into a town like this one was because of product. He was too good for this place, she thought a lot.

Other times, like now, she was happy he was here and not just because of the reunion.

"Nah, never been a convert like that and, uh, not about to start now. Speaking of," she shifts anxiously, "Ash in the back?" He looks with her with some disbelief- or about as much as Fez has the capability of showing.

"Yeah but... Bruh, for real? Din you just get clean?" Rue snags the joint for a last quick hit before tucking it between his freckled fingers swiftly.

"Yep and it's been too long," she puffs out as she turns on foot and goes in the store door to collect.

Ash looks no older than 12 at the most but he's the most put together businessman Rue knows when it comes to dealing. Full package with chains and small face tats, he's not a stranger to the harder shit. There's a brief interaction with no form of emotion shown for her revival since her OD. It doesn't bother her though. She would prefer to leave it in the past. After a brief exchange of bullshit vouching for Fez to spot Rue for some Homecoming party favors, Ashtray sends her on her way with a few OC's and a couple new fast acting psychedelics. Apparently all the rage in Miami, but these drugs are a long way from home.

As she walks back out to Fez to grab her bike, she steals another hit from his joint before heading home.

"Ay Rue, there's some new girl in town I think you gonna be friends with," he drawls out, his voice thick with lungs full of smoke. She breathes out, processing.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Came in all dressed up like Sailor Moon and shit," he coughs. She points an eyebrow and looks around the deserted lot.

"Huh." She pops the hood of her sweater up and puts her headphones in before giving him a half wave and pedaling off. In the background of the music she hears his deep voice yelling something about a hundred twenty bucks.


	2. Chapter 2

Rue has this rule now, about drinking and biking because something about the countless blurred rides with cuts on her chin from flying over the handlebars into garage doors, or picking twigs and leaves out of her hair from falling into hedges, has her feelin' some kind of way. So she walks. The air is so thick sticking to her skin from the after rain stillness and the heat acting like glue. But it's one of those nights that hold promise in the haze of the humidity. Shes walking to McKay's which is annoyingly far all the way across town, but she'll get there eventually.

It's fuckin hot though.

She has a sleek black bomber jacket or hoodie, whatever it is, it's the only thing keeping her from burning up while she drags a layer of overheating neck sweat from under her quickly frizzing hair. She already took an OC on her way over so the trek is at least hazy. Going quick. The rain puddling on the ground now refracts shards of images on the street in front of her. Sometimes she wishes she could flip into the other world she sees on the ground. Just fall through puddles like Alice down a rabbit hole. Or maybe she just flips over and instead of falling down she falls upward then, through puddles and straight overhead like some sick light-flashing galaxy joke. What if gravity reversed? Things get brighter and brighter and-

"Yo Casper! You want a ride?"

Rue looks up and no, gravity hasn't reversed, it's just an obnoxiously bright headlight pulling up next to her. Once she's swallowed her notions of constellations through the looking glass, she focuses on Kat's surprised face. It takes her a minute but nonetheless.

"Why, thank you." 

And then she's in the backseat next to BB who's torching clouds from her vape, listening to Maddy drone on about why all guys are losers and how much she looks like shit. The OC drones them out and in the passing streets she doesn't see gravity reversed but there's so many lights glaring as they pass by. Rue pretends like it's not wishful thinking when she imagines flipping upward into space isn't actually impossible.

….

When they arrive at McKay's it's a shitshow and they've come in during the heat of it all. There's a deep red strip of lights raking through the whole house only to be offset by a nauseating blueish white fluorescent tone in the kitchen and deepened by the pool in the back. People are wasted. Spit is swapped in the corner of every room and Rue can almost feel mono floating through the air from it. Some rooms smell like a dispensary with all the blunts passed around and she doesn't fucking understand if smoking green is supposed to be chill why every room she goes in to hit a blunt people are so damn rude. High school is such bullshit.

Everyone in this house is clearly on a different level and the primal discomfort pulls her hand deep into her jacket pocket palming her dime bag. Her eyes flick around to find a bathroom and when she sees it open, she slips away from Kat and the rest of them. The door is closed and with it only takes her a minute to nail out two hits of whatever the fuck Ashtray sold her. The haziness kicks in and her limbs turn to liquid then, and finally she feels normal. All that wishful thinking has theoretical promise now. She walks out of the bathroom and God, she's rollin off her tits. Music is better and the lights are dancing better than most of the people falling over in this place. She could walk on walls if she wanted, flip gravity on its head until she walked right out the front door, falling or flying or-

"Hey Rue," someone yells over the chatter, " I didn't know you got back already."

It's Lexi, and all of a sudden it's way way too much. Too much of sobriety flying through her memories while she can't focus enough to dig for those grounding recollections while the carpet is convulsing under her feet. She gets her shit together though.

"Heyyy...Lexi," she draws out probably a second too long. She knows it too when Lexi's grin fractionally slips. "How've you been?" she recovers and gives Lex a one armed hug trying to compose her face and brush off the underlying disappointment and- to be frank- pity that she knows is coming.

"Things are good, yeah, just with Cass for the summer- well, the first part at least after you.. Whatever,but yeah just me and her until she-" Lex stops stammering from either being drunk or discomfort (whatever weirdness she's feeling, Rue definitely gets it) and she does a small nervous laugh and takes a breath. "Anyway, you're back! How was rehab?"

"Oh you know… got out alive so here we are," she shrugs and does a half smile. If Lexi knows that she's high, she won't say anything but it doesn't stop the internal cringe crawling all over her skin. She needs to get out. "Okayyyy well! This is fun but I need to get a drink, and maybe catch you later?" She gives Lexi an inquisitive shrug and they both are quick to agree. A half assed fake smile and wave bye and she's gasping in the relief she feels. Obviously Rue knew coming back to town to the biggest party before the school year would-duh- result in her seeing people she hadn't seen since before her overdose. Which, of course, everyone will know about. Of course. Still... Lexi always had her back, and Rue wished she could be different. Climb out of this lifestyle in a way that would make everyone happy, make her feel less of a disappointment, but something was off and if she tried to really do that, she wouldn't quite be happy herself. Then again her staying happy like this would probably end up with her dead and...yeah. Therein lies the catch. What is she willing to give up?

She goes outside to get some air from it all and sees Fez on the lawn couches by the pool. He hands the joint in his mouth over to her as the plops down on the couch. He gives her a pointed look before looking around the house again lazily.

"What? She asks him.

"C'mon now, you owe me a hunnid twenty bucks," he says casually taking his smoke back. It's an unmalicious request, like asking her brother to borrow some clothes. But he's not her brother, and it's drug money but still. Getting past the details, it feels about the same.

"Yeah you know I got you, you'll get it Fez." She feels the joint liquidating her body again, loosening everything up, and it's the most blissful she's felt since getting back. Sinking into couch cushions like a fly on the wall with probably the only person who doesn't judge her, a step out of reality and with all the lights of the pool, she smiles. A little dumb smile to herself.

"I missed you bruh. For real," he hands the smoke back to her. Rue watches her hands take it from him and watches the pool play colors across his skin, like watching a movie. And she loves him. Loves the back of his fuzzy hands, how he can make a grandpa sweater and a collared button up underneath look so good, how he never gets heated and the way his words drawl out. How she knows his eyes are green but look like they glow icy from the pool. That's when she knows she's really high. "Rue you want a hit or you just gon look at it?"

She's had her hand half stretched out for a few seconds and when she actually acknowledges that he sees her blasted she slowly flips the bird with a deadpan face before taking it.

"Missed you too, Fez." He just pulls a lazy smile before it fades.

"That shit at the beginning of the summer got me scared as fuck. For real. I seen a lot of people come and go but none like you Rue. You better than all that shit. And bruh you gotta know," he pauses to take another hit, "whatever you goin through, this drug shit aint the answer. Ion wanna watch you go like that too, you feel me?"

Rue is about to respond with all of these hazy high compatible memories about why she keeps getting high, how it keeps her afloat, but the mood is killed as there's a pale blur passing by and suddenly the couch bounces.

"Hey," this girl waves to Rue, over Fez, "I'm Jules. I'm new. My uh friend told me this was the place to be tonight, but uhm honestly," she laughs" you seem like the only two not blacked out or tryna fuck. And I needed a familiar face."

Now, Rue has never been good with surprises whether its interruptions or events so it takes her a second for her brain to catch up, especially in her state, but in that second she sees Fez break out in a small grin.

"Yoo," he gives a half laugh, "Sailor Moon, back again." He throws an arm around her shoulder and they make a very prominent duo Rue thinks while they make small talk. Fez with his hyperintense colors and Jules with her hyperintense style. She's in this purple overall dress and a T shirt underneath fishnet stockings and boots that look twice as big as her legs. Platinum blonde hair almost as pale as her skin and with the furry backpack it's very apt to see where the nickname comes into play.

It's for the second time in like (fucking seriously Rue?) five minutes she's completely waned out of reality. She gives a wave back then.

"I'm Rue. Not new, but kinda feels like it."

Fez gives Jules the sparse remainders of the smoke and Rue is staring really, she feels it and knows she should stop, especially when she feels herself watching Jules' throat move when chugging the latter half of a Svedka bottle, so she drags her eyes over to the house instead. The glass panes look into the kitchen and next to maybe five empty bottles of vodka on the counter, she sees Maddy there sitting and dry humping some shorter blonde dude standing in front of her. Rue gives an audible grimace then because if there's anything Rue knows about Maddy, it's that she and Nate have history and… well. A lot of fucking problems. If Nate sees them right there in plain sight, it'll be a shit show.

"Friend of yours?"

Rue gets dragged back to her little bubble of hyperintensity and sees Jules cross-legged, chin perched on her hand and notioning to Maddy. Fez isn't paying intention, probably too high for his own good, and continues to seal another joint up.

"Uh, no. No not really. It's just yknow," her eyes roll, "everyone knows everyone in school and uh, everyone knows Nate and Maddy. They're like, um, this power couple of whatever." She sniffs and nods and trying her best to pretend to be sober enough to just broach reality again, but honestly, it's gotten really hard and all she wants to do is look at everything.

"So why the grimace?" Jules half laughs and gives her a puzzled look with this kinda half grin that _really _isn't doing Rue any favors with keeping her shit together.

"Uhh, hah, well.." she nervous laughs and then her anxiety is replaced with holding her breath because Rue had looked back from Jules to the house again in time to see the sweaty, massive _beast _of a boy come through the doorway to the kitchen. "Um...because her fuck buddy isn't Nate. _That _is Nate." She points a limp finger at him and Jules follows her view a second before shot glasses get hurled across the room, bottles get shattered. Nate is knocking over everything in between him and the two across the kitchen. They all hear the glass and some muffled yelling, but from outside but nothing is distinct. The music still plays and everyone else has grown silent. Probably fuckin' terrified that Nate can rip someone's throat off if they so much as sneeze.

Rue has to hand it to Maddy, she may be an airhead for dating someone has neanderthalistic as Nate Jacobs but she can hold her ground. Anyone sensible would just leave, or run screaming, but Maddy get's right back in his face.

"They're not together," Rue adds to Jules, and she looks over, "Like they were but I guess there was some blowout fight and she dumped him. But now, you know" she shrugs and flips her hood over head, sinking back into the couch, "everyone's on one and jealousy can be a bitch."

It's the first time they hold eye contact and it's for maybe a second which makes Rue feel wildly exasperated with her complete lack of chill. Jules looks pretty blank faced apart from her intense grey eyes as well and her mouth as minimally agape. They both look over when they hear the back door open and see Nate storming out with a smaller Asian guy shoving him out of the house. A brave man, Rue thinks to herself. Jules turns away and takes another chug of Svedka, but Fez and Rue are watching Nate storm around the yard and make eye contact with Jules hair after a second. From the side of her eye, she sees Fezco's grip tighten minimally around Jules' shoulder.

Then it blows up.

"Hey. Hey!" Nate walks over and if the ground could shake, it would. Jules stays turned around but keeps drinking a little wide eyed now. It only takes a second or two to cover the ground over to them. He rips the bottle from over her head and splashes some from over her head, she's sputtering some out from when she choked as it hit the back of her throat. It's fast then. He grabs her arm and pulls her up from the couch violently and gets right in her face. "This ain't your booze is it? Pretty sure this is for friends and well, I don't fuckin' know you. You're certainly not my friend," Nate says, pushing his forehead against hers. Jules looks like a deer who can't find her legs and is caught in the headlights. Fez stands to grab Jules from Nate's massive grip but Nate just shoves him back down with his fist holding the bottle.

"Whoa whoa whats up man? Chill out, I'm just making small talk," he shrugs and shakes his head. "It's a party right?" He looks around and motions to everyone in the yard who is quick to drop eye contact. He laughs then and chugs the end of the bottle while still holding Jules too tightly on her arm. He downs the last quarter of it without so much as flinching. His sweat is gleaning on his chest and his face, dangerously playful at the moment. He looks back to Jules then and it hits Rue how fucked this just got and how _not _ sober she is to deal with something like this.

There's a huge uncomfortable pause in the silence in the yard then he turns back to her, vodka dripping on his chest and his playful face drops staring dead at her while she refuses to make eye contact. Rue catches Maddy's eye then from the kitchen and from the look on her face, she knows, Rue knows that this isn't an empty threat anymore and lines have been crossed more than either of them have seen.

"You look a little clammy, girl who's not my friend. Maybe you're feeling sick. Maybe...you need to cool off," Nate says and then he's dragging her from the couch towards the pool and Fez is yelling at him but it's ignored when Jules lashes out.

"Get the fuck off of me, asshole!" and her thin long hand gives a resounding smack across his cheek but his head barely moves. He breaks into a wide eyed grin then.

"Ohh okay, that's how it's gonna be," he laughs before the smile drops and he drops the bottle and grips her jaw, covering her mouth and flaring Jules' eyes wide open. He walks her backward then one hand on her arm and one on her face to where her toes are barely skittering on the ground. Rue sees her eyes get shiny with fear and she doesn't remember how she got on her feet. Fez is also on his feet yelling at him.

"You know," he grits thru his teeth right in her face leaning her over the edge of the pool, "that wasn't a very nice thing to do." Rue sees Jules hitting her hand on his arm, turning more pale then her already luminescent skin. Fez is moving from the corner of Rue's eye. "Probably why you don't have any friends...asshole." Nate lifts her a second and throws her back hard into the pool and it's at just the right angle and push where there's a loud smack against the water, where she slammed everything a bit too sharp. Rue feels her feet moving and her curls cooling in the swift breeze on her neck and then she's wet too, and her eyes burn.

There's so much blue.

Like an idiot Rue didn't breathe before she dropped in the water herself so she finds the only figure in the pool and rushes to swim over to her, pulling a hand under her forearm and ricocheting up to the surface. Now is not the time or place but Rue gets entranced for a second, watching the bright blonde hair in the water, pool lights playing with yellows and blues. It's when she needs to inhale and she cant that she follows the purple dress to the surface.

Jules is coughing deep and wheezing, sputtering water from her mouth and clinging a forearm to the pool edge trying to push wet hair from her face. Her glitter eye shadow drips a bit down her cheek and part of Rue feels like she's still high. There's a loud thud or smack coming from the lawn then and Rue's heart drops to her stomach when Nate's lumbering form is hunched over someone on the ground. He's straddling the ginger and landing blow after blow, Fezco's face already turning purple and bloody, and every punch swinging his head to the side so hard Rue is terrified Nate will snap his neck from the force.

Time slows a bit and she pulls herself out of the pool trying to get to Fezco. Everything's in slow motion and it's hard trying to navigate the adrenaline from how fast everything happened and the fear in her gut, trying to navigate the liquid feeling in her head from the sloshing in her clothes, her hair. It's hard navigating all the people flying over to Nate all at once. She sees McKay and the Asian boy from earlier reach him first before she has a chance to get her footing from outside the pool. There is no love in the restraint they pull him off with, McKay twisting his arms back hard and there's a weird elegance at watching all these muscles strain against each other. Nate is face down in the grass, yelling something guttural and shifting under the weight of the two of them. She hears some screaming from McKay trying to calm him down and more of the boys come over. It's the closest Rue sees of trying to restrain Goliath.

The time to process all this passes in split seconds when her feet are flying to her boy, her knees falling in the grass next to him a bit too hard. She's grabbing his limp face and trying to wipe the blood from his eyes, One eye and the other cheek are swelling rapidly, a blood vessel is popped in his swollen eye and his coughing blood from a wide cut on his upper lip. Her face is hot and Rue thinks she could be crying or just pissed beyond all rational measures but she's sopping wet and she really has no fucking idea. She hears Maddy's shrill voice screaming somewhere on the side and from how many times "Are you fucking serious?" is used, she knows it's towards Nate. A hand is on her back then, and its too sticky, too wet with her bomber jacket on and shes lashing out now, but a hand grips her wrist and she hears Jules voice next to her. It's muffled but repeated again and again and coming into focus from her fear and anger, the rest of her high, she hears her name a lot.

"Rue! Rue, listen- hey, come _on _ Rue!" She looks at Jules then and she's dripping a bit like a drowned cat but she's okay and steady, if not a bit blurry in Rue's line of sight. But she's serious, the look on her face. That's about the time when Rue realizes she's hyperventilating and freaking out more than she thought. "Rue, he needs help, he needs to go to a hospital, _now._"

"Nuh," they both hear from below, "Nuh 'ospital."

"Fez," Rue is crying to running a hand through his buzzed ginger hair, "Bro you need help-"

"_No. 'Ospital,_" he grabs her hand on his face, and Rue breaks a little more but Jules' hand grips her on her shoulder again and shakes her.

"Okay, Rue…" Jules says sternly, clearly, "Where can we take him? Can someone help him?" Wiping water (and probably a lot of tears) from her face, she thinks out loud.

"Uh, uhm, there's his brother at home but I don't know if he can help, and- and I don't know, how are we supposed to get there, I got a ride-" Fezco grunts and gives a half nod or shake or something.

"Dry," he says, and drops his hand.

"Fez I know we're wet, but we need to get you out of here, okay?" Jules is undoing the collar on his purple undershirt.

"_Dry'v_," he groans, and Rue sees his hand trying to find his pocket. She gasps or sighs, or some weird noise, and pushes his hand away, lifting his grandpa sweater to reach into his pocket. Car keys.

"Okay, Fez, we're gonna get you up alright? Can you stand?" Jules asks calmly. He mutters something that almost sounds like agreement but they don't wait to see before Jules pulls him up to a seated and he gives a loud groan, his head wobbling on his shoulders like a bobblehead and Rue is crying again.

"_RUE,_" Jules raises her voice to her and she meets her eye, "You need to get it together. Now. He needs help. Get his arm over you okay, ready? On his feet, and… _up_." They lift him to his wobbly legs and his balance is shot but he is trying to stand on his own weight. Jules leads most of the way and Rue is dissociating again with anxiety settling in her chest. There's brief snapshots as they pass towards the front of the house from the side lawn. Maddy yelling at Nate who is dragged through the house by McKay trying to not let him retaliate at her. Kat stares at her from the front lawn, stunned with a solo cup in her hand. Someone is passed out in the lawn. The haunting red lightstrip piercing through the open front door. Rue is obsessively clicking the car keys throughout the street trying to listen for his car and they hear it halfway down the block. There is a lot of tripping and stumbling over there while Jules says some calming words in the background.

"Shh, you're fine, you're gonna get some help. It's just a couple of scratches. You're gonna be fine Fez, hold tight." They manage to get him in the backseat, sitting first before laying his head down in Rue's lap. She doesn't remember getting in the car but she remembers the feel of his soft hair stroked in her hands in the dried blood clotting in his beard. They're driving then- well Jules is driving and Rue is crying and Fez is muttering, sometimes meeting her eye. He can't hold her stare, his eyes keep flying around but at least he's conscious. Jules is on the phone then, Rue can't tell with who.

The only thing she can tell as they're flying through the night with glaring lights passing them by and puddles looking up into space is how warm Fezco's hand is in her when he grabs it from his beard and she watches one tear fall down the corner of his eye.

Rue- lexi fez and jules. Jules- rue and nate/tyler. Nate- jules and maddy. Maddy- cassie and nate. Cassie- maddy and mckay.

Conflicts: nate and mckay. Lexi and cassie. Maddy and nate. Nate and cal. Nate and mckay .


End file.
